Hans Wolfram Gerhard

Hans Gerhard was born and educated in Germany. In the 1980's he retired from an academic and administrative career, settling on an abandoned farm in Rappahannock County, Virginia. Here he joined the lively local community of craftsmen and artists. As painter and sculptor, Hans has taken his cues from German modernism, flourishing mainly in Berlin and Munich before the Nazi repression forced it underground or into exile and new venues, mainly in the USA. He took up and followed that tradition with his mostly abstract paintings, and in using found objects, scrap iron, and steel in creating whimsical, often comical and sometimes more highly stylized sculptures. His work has been regularly shown in Washington, DC and elsewhere since the 1970's. Franz Bader, the venerable late gallerist, was an early primary source of encouragement for the artistic path chosen by Hans.